It's now been long enough since the last debate that we can begin to assess the impact. Here's the current Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent national polls, all of which were conducted between October 21st and the end of the month; that ten-day period:

Biden: 29.1%
Warren: 20.3%
Sanders: 17.1%
Buttigieg: 7.1%
Others: Under 4%

This last summer, I audaciously went ahead and proclaimed Joe Biden the eventual winner of this nominating contest. That prediction still stands, and I think here you can see why that is. Biden is among the least favorable options in my opinion, but let's be honest: he's coasting to victory with minimal effort here. He's basically not campaigning. He was largely ignored in the last debate. You get the picture. He doesn't even have to try. In fact, the evidence so far indicates that trying is bad for him. More exposure = drop in the polls. Avoiding the limelight appears to be a smart strategy for him.

I got a little big hopeful for just a minute in this campaign there in early October when Warren momentarily overtook Biden in the polls, but we can now see the Warren fad is coming to an end and we're rapidly getting right back to normal. It's clear that Warren's inability to be clear about her plan to fund a single-payer health care system in the last debate damaged her badly. She had at one point been at 26.6% in this same average of polls, slightly ahead of Biden.

Addressing her main shortcoming in the last debate, Warren has recently released her plan to fund her Medicare-for-All system. And the bottom line is that she manages to avoid proposing any new taxation of middle-income Americans, notably in contrast to Bernie Sanders' funding plan, which includes a bit of a payroll tax hike for those making more than $29,000 a year. (Told you that's what she would do, by the way.) This gives her an answer to that crucial query that plagued her in the last debate, and a pretty good one all in all. This financing plan will probably have broader appeal than that of Bernie Sanders, which will only appeal to low-income Americans really. Still, it will be some time yet before she'll have the opportunity to present this plan to millions of Americans on a debate stage. We'll see I think after the next debate if this added dose of clarity makes a difference for her. Maybe. We'll see.

Really though, I think Biden's got the race in the bag. That one blip on the radar that briefly had me believing that maybe, maybe this race could be won by a progressive afterall notwithstanding, this is a downright boring nominating contest with an uninspiring, teflon frontrunner who can't be damaged and can't be beaten.

It's now been long enough since the last debate that we can begin to assess the impact. Here's the current Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent national polls, all of which were conducted between October 21st and the end of the month; that ten-day period:

Biden: 29.1%
Warren: 20.3%
Sanders: 17.1%
Buttigieg: 7.1%
Others: Under 4%

It's now been long enough since the last debate that we can begin to assess the impact. Here's the current Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent national polls, all of which were conducted between October 21st and the end of the month; that ten-day period:

Biden: 29.1%
Warren: 20.3%
Sanders: 17.1%
Buttigieg: 7.1%
Others: Under 4%

This last summer, I audaciously went ahead and proclaimed Joe Biden the eventual winner of this nominating contest. That prediction still stands, and I think here you can see why that is. Biden is among the least favorable options in my opinion, but let's be honest: he's coasting to victory with minimal effort here. He's basically not campaigning. He was largely ignored in the last debate. You get the picture. He doesn't even have to try. In fact, the evidence so far indicates that trying is bad for him. More exposure = drop in the polls. Avoiding the limelight appears to be a smart strategy for him.

I got a little big hopeful for just a minute in this campaign there in early October when Warren momentarily overtook Biden in the polls, but we can now see the Warren fad is coming to an end and we're rapidly getting right back to normal. It's clear that Warren's inability to be clear about her plan to fund a single-payer health care system in the last debate damaged her badly. She had at one point been at 26.6% in this same average of polls, slightly ahead of Biden.

Addressing her main shortcoming in the last debate, Warren has recently released her plan to fund her Medicare-for-All system. And the bottom line is that she manages to avoid proposing any new taxation of middle-income Americans, notably in contrast to Bernie Sanders' funding plan, which includes a bit of a payroll tax hike for those making more than $29,000 a year. (Told you that's what she would do, by the way.) This gives her an answer to that crucial query that plagued her in the last debate, and a pretty good one all in all. This financing plan will probably have broader appeal than that of Bernie Sanders, which will only appeal to low-income Americans really. Still, it will be some time yet before she'll have the opportunity to present this plan to millions of Americans on a debate stage. We'll see I think after the next debate if this added dose of clarity makes a difference for her. Maybe. We'll see.

Really though, I think Biden's got the race in the bag. That one blip on the radar that briefly had me believing that maybe, maybe this race could be won by a progressive afterall notwithstanding, this is a downright boring nominating contest with an uninspiring, teflon frontrunner who can't be damaged and can't be beaten.

It's now been long enough since the last debate that we can begin to assess the impact. Here's the current Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent national polls, all of which were conducted between October 21st and the end of the month; that ten-day period:

Biden: 29.1%
Warren: 20.3%
Sanders: 17.1%
Buttigieg: 7.1%
Others: Under 4%

This last summer, I audaciously went ahead and proclaimed Joe Biden the eventual winner of this nominating contest. That prediction still stands, and I think here you can see why that is. Biden is among the least favorable options in my opinion, but let's be honest: he's coasting to victory with minimal effort here. He's basically not campaigning. He was largely ignored in the last debate. You get the picture. He doesn't even have to try. In fact, the evidence so far indicates that trying is bad for him. More exposure = drop in the polls. Avoiding the limelight appears to be a smart strategy for him.

I got a little big hopeful for just a minute in this campaign there in early October when Warren momentarily overtook Biden in the polls, but we can now see the Warren fad is coming to an end and we're rapidly getting right back to normal. It's clear that Warren's inability to be clear about her plan to fund a single-payer health care system in the last debate damaged her badly. She had at one point been at 26.6% in this same average of polls, slightly ahead of Biden.

Addressing her main shortcoming in the last debate, Warren has recently released her plan to fund her Medicare-for-All system. And the bottom line is that she manages to avoid proposing any new taxation of middle-income Americans, notably in contrast to Bernie Sanders' funding plan, which includes a bit of a payroll tax hike for those making more than $29,000 a year. (Told you that's what she would do, by the way.) This gives her an answer to that crucial query that plagued her in the last debate, and a pretty good one all in all. This financing plan will probably have broader appeal than that of Bernie Sanders, which will only appeal to low-income Americans really. Still, it will be some time yet before she'll have the opportunity to present this plan to millions of Americans on a debate stage. We'll see I think after the next debate if this added dose of clarity makes a difference for her. Maybe. We'll see.

Really though, I think Biden's got the race in the bag. That one blip on the radar that briefly had me believing that maybe, maybe this race could be won by a progressive afterall notwithstanding, this is a downright boring nominating contest with an uninspiring, teflon frontrunner who can't be damaged and can't be beaten.

It's now been long enough since the last debate that we can begin to assess the impact. Here's the current Real Clear Politics average of the seven most recent national polls, all of which were conducted between October 21st and the end of the month; that ten-day period:

Biden: 29.1%
Warren: 20.3%
Sanders: 17.1%
Buttigieg: 7.1%
Others: Under 4%

This last summer, I audaciously went ahead and proclaimed Joe Biden the eventual winner of this nominating contest. That prediction still stands, and I think here you can see why that is. Biden is among the least favorable options in my opinion, but let's be honest: he's coasting to victory with minimal effort here. He's basically not campaigning. He was largely ignored in the last debate. You get the picture. He doesn't even have to try. In fact, the evidence so far indicates that trying is bad for him. More exposure = drop in the polls. Avoiding the limelight appears to be a smart strategy for him.

I got a little big hopeful for just a minute in this campaign there in early October when Warren momentarily overtook Biden in the polls, but we can now see the Warren fad is coming to an end and we're rapidly getting right back to normal. It's clear that Warren's inability to be clear about her plan to fund a single-payer health care system in the last debate damaged her badly. She had at one point been at 26.6% in this same average of polls, slightly ahead of Biden.

Addressing her main shortcoming in the last debate, Warren has recently released her plan to fund her Medicare-for-All system. And the bottom line is that she manages to avoid proposing any new taxation of middle-income Americans, notably in contrast to Bernie Sanders' funding plan, which includes a bit of a payroll tax hike for those making more than $29,000 a year. (Told you that's what she would do, by the way.) This gives her an answer to that crucial query that plagued her in the last debate, and a pretty good one all in all. This financing plan will probably have broader appeal than that of Bernie Sanders, which will only appeal to low-income Americans really. Still, it will be some time yet before she'll have the opportunity to present this plan to millions of Americans on a debate stage. We'll see I think after the next debate if this added dose of clarity makes a difference for her. Maybe. We'll see.

Really though, I think Biden's got the race in the bag. That one blip on the radar that briefly had me believing that maybe, maybe this race could be won by a progressive afterall notwithstanding, this is a downright boring nominating contest with an uninspiring, teflon frontrunner who can't be damaged and can't be beaten.

Oof. Brace for impact, folks. Brace for impact.

Disclaimer: all three match or exceed Clinton's numbers with White voters, but they're underperforming Clinton with minorities, probably due to undecideds (I would hope, at least). Except for Biden, this effect is enough to make Warren and Sanders underperform Clinton's totals even though they are overperforming her numbers among Whites.